Texas AG Calls For Statewide Foreclosure Freeze

Hot on the heels of foreclosure and eviction freezes by GMAC/Ally, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, the Attorney General for the state of Texas has become the latest AG to request that loan servicing companies put a temporary halt to foreclosures.

Yesterday, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent letters to 27 loan servicing companies demanding an immediate freeze on foreclosures and evictions from foreclosures. The moratorium comes after the revelation of illicit activities, including signing thousands of foreclosure documents each month without reading or verifying them; signing affidavits falsely claiming personal knowledge of facts or falsely claiming the signing party reviewed attached documents; and notarizing documents prior to their signing or when the signer was not present.

Abbott has given the companies until Oct. 15 to identify any employees who may have participated in unlawful practices.

The AG in Maryland has called for a 60-day freeze on foreclosures, while Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden has asked mortgage banks to suspend all pending foreclosures. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said her office is investigating an “apparent failure of major creditors to follow state foreclosure law.”

Its true though… there have been reports of this for some time… Why didn’t these AG’s work faster? Luckily I am not, and so far, don’t personally know anyone in this situation.

As a simple person just sitting here, I think this would be one of those things to act fast on. I’m glad they are starting to look into this now… but how many people have lost their homes due to improper and illegal acts?

I understand freezing foreclosures where the lender engaged in improper activity, but demanding that every lender freeze? Unless they have reason to believe that all of them were being naughty, that’s going too far.

Only humans should be innocent until proven guilty. Corporate personhoods should be guilty until they prove their innocence…or that their entire motive for everything, always is not profit at any and all costs.

Knowing Mr. Abbott, it’s more likely that he’s strongly suggesting that if they voluntarily freeze foreclosures now and weed out the bad actors and bogus paperwork, he won’t attempt to get an injunction to force a freeze and will consider their co-operation when negotiating for fines and settlements for any previous bad acts.

Any banks that willfully continue to submit false paperwork have now been duly warned, and the State’s AG will now use the full power of the State to go after the banks for their knowing and willful misbehavior and violations of the law.

How much money are these banks using to bribe the entire political system that the State AG’s are asking the crooks/banks, hopefully in the most polite and respectful tone, to correct and verify that their illegal behavior has been remedied?

How about maybe changing Texas foreclosure laws that allow homes to go to sale faster than almost any other state? How about eliminating Texas Tuesday (the first Tuesday of the month, when all Texas foreclosure sales take place) to reduce some of the pressure to have all the paperwork done in time to make the arbitrary deadline?